Ahmed al-Nami, like
Wail al-Shehri,
Waleed al-Shehri, and
Mohand al-Shehri, was born in the
'Asir Province in
Saudi Arabia. Born to the
Quraysh tribe of
Saudi Arabia, al-Nami served as a
muezzin at the Seqeley mosque after having reportedly become very religious sometime in early 1999. That autumn he left his family home in
Abha in the summer of 2000 to complete the
Hajj, but never returned – instead travelling to the Al Farouq training camp in
Afghanistan where he met and befriended
Waleed and
Wail al-Shehri, two brothers from
Khamis Mushayt in the same province, and
Saeed al-Ghamdi. The four reportedly pledged themselves to
Jihad in the spring of 2000, in a ceremony presided over by Wail al-Shehri – who had dubbed himself
Abu Mossaeb al-Janubi after one of
Muhammad's companions. Dubbed "Abu Hashim", al-Nami was considered "gentle in manner" by his colleagues, and reported that he had a dream in which he rode a
mare along with
Muhammad, and that the prophet told him to dismount and fight his enemies to liberate his land. He was interviewed by a consular officer, who again approved his application. Records at the time only recorded past failures to procure a visa, so the officer had no way of realising that al-Nami had successfully received an earlier visa. In mid-November 2000, the
9/11 Commission believed that al-Nami,
Wail, and
Waleed al-Shehri, all of whom had obtained their U.S. visas in late October, traveled in a group from Saudi Arabia to
Beirut and then onward to
Iran where they could travel through to Afghanistan without getting their passports stamped. This probably followed their return to Saudi Arabia to get "clean" passports. An associate of a senior Hezbollah operative is thought to have been on the same flight, although this may have been a coincidence. While in the
United Arab Emirates, al-Nami purchased
traveler's cheques presumed to have been paid for by
Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Five other hijackers also passed through the UAE and purchased travellers cheques, including
Majed Moqed,
Saeed al-Ghamdi,
Hamza al-Ghamdi,
Ahmed al-Haznawi, and
Wail al-Shehri.
2001 In March 2001, Ahmed al-Nami appeared in an
al-Qaeda farewell video showing 13 of the "muscle hijackers" before they left their training centre in
Kandahar; while he does not speak, he is seen studying maps and flight manuals. On 23 April, al-Nami was recorded obtaining a new US visa. On 28 May, al-Nami arrived in the United States from
Dubai with fellow-hijackers
Mohand al-Shehri and
Hamza al-Ghamdi. By early June, al-Nami was living in apartment 1504 at the Delray Racquet Club condominiums with
Saeed al-Ghamdi in
Delray Beach, Florida. He
telephoned his family in 'Asir shortly after arriving in the country. In June, he phoned his family for the last time. He was one of 9 hijackers to open a
SunTrust bank account with a cash deposit around June 2001, and on June 29 received a Florida State Identification Card. On 28 August, al-Nami and
Ahmed al-Haznawi reportedly bothered a
Delray Beach resident, Maria Siscar Simpson, to let them through her apartment to retrieve a towel that had fallen off their balcony onto hers. On 5 September, al-Nami and
Saeed al-Ghamdi purchased tickets for a September 7 flight to
Newark at Mile High Travel on Commercial Boulevard—paying cash for their tickets.
Ziad Jarrah and al-Haznawi also purchased tickets for the same flight from Passage Tours. On 7 September, all four Flight 93 hijackers flew from
Fort Lauderdale to
Newark International Airport aboard
Spirit Airlines. ==Attacks==